Did Bitcoin Lead To Birth Of Ransomware?
Ransomware, rogue software which encrypt data on your hard disk and demand payment in bitcoins to restore it, have been on the rise recently. Hospitals, police stations and universities have been the recent targets of ransomware. What exactly are the causes of the increase in ransomware and did Bitcoin lead to its birth? Craig Williams, Senior Technical Leader of Cisco Talo, says: “The ability to demand payment in bitcoinCT r: 8, a difficult-to-trace virtual currency not controlled by any country, was 'basically the birth of ransomware' and has helped drive its success since the currency's....
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Over the course of this year, DarkSide, a group of Russian hackers got the attention of the U.S. Department of State. In May 2021, DarkSide was responsible for a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, extorting $5M for not leaking data they had on the Pipeline’s network. This is considered to be one of the major ransomware attacks on the U.S. infrastructure to this date. What we know about the DarkSide is that they: Operate as Ransomware as a service (Raas) Get their ransom in Bitcoin The U.S. Department of State issued an award of $10M for information that would lead to finding the....
Over the course of 2015, many individuals and companies have been affected by ransomware. While this may have nothing to do with Bitcoin at first glance, there have been a few cases where the ransomware could only be removed by paying a certain fee in Bitcoin. But those days may be over now, as a decryption toolkit for various types of ransomware has been made publicly available, free of charge. CryptoLocker and CoinVault Ransomware. Two types of ransomware making headlines all across the world in recent months are called CryptoLocker and CoinVault. Both types of ransomware operate, in the....
In a ransomware attack, it is assumed that the hackers prefer the ransom being paid in bitcoin due to the anonymous nature of its transactions. It might not be true as the hackers are probably interested in bitcoin for entirely different reasons. Bitcoin and Ransomware, these words appear more frequently in a single sentence these days than we wish for. Ransomware attacks have become a common occurrence these days. We had earlier reported the use of Advertising network by cyber criminals to propagate ransomware to the computers belonging to the readers of some of the leading news websites.....
The new GoldenEye ransomware poses as a resume to infect computers belonging to HR departments. James Bond, the fictional spy, has met his match when it comes to deception. A new ransomware named after one of the Bond movies, GoldenEye infects work computers by posing as a job application. According to cybersecurity researchers, the GoldenEye ransomware is a variant of previously known Petya ransomware. The ransomware targets the HR departments of the companies as they receive hundreds if not thousands of emails from unknown people applying for job positions. A well-crafted mail delivers....
In fact, 1% of attacks saw a demand of US$150,000 to be paid in Bitcoin. Ransomware developers are always one step ahead of security researchers these days. Not only in the way their software works, but also how they target potential victims. American businesses are seeing an influx in ransomware attacks all of a sudden. More particularly, company executives are a prime target for ransom are right now. While nearly nine in ten ransomware attacks are targeting hospitals these days, corporations are not out of the woods just yet. A new study unveiled how 40% of businesses investigated had....